Just to let you know that Barnsley Folk and Acoustic Night now run slow music sessions every other week (ish) before the formal club night on Mondays.

We play a selection of traditional tunes at a steady pace. Sheet music is welcome (and sometimes provided), but we also encourage people to memorise the tunes, and to bring new tunes to the session All acoustic instruments are welcome - we currently have a few fiddle players, a couple of guitar players and a recorder player.

The next few sessions are; 14th Nov, 28th Nov and 12th Dec. Dates after new year TBC. They run from 8pm to 8.45 ish and are followed by the normal club night, which you are welcome to stay for if you want to.

It is really pleasing to see experienced musicians giving their time to encourage and make things easier for new aspiring musicians to make the improvements that they will need to playing in regular sessions, so well done Sarah & Barnsley Folk.

Could I point out that something similar has been happening in my home town for some time now? Andy Warburton, Valmai Goodyear & Bryan Creer have been running ENGLISH TUNES PRACTICE SESSIONS on the fourth Tuesday of the month at the Elephant & Castle in Lewes. These are based on the tunes that have been published in Andy's Lewes Favourites tune book.

If you would like to play English dance music, here is an opportunity to meet other players to learn and swap tunes regardless of what instrument you play, to what standard, and whether or not you read music. This will be a chance to nail down some of those tunes that you recognise when you hear them but can't quite remember, to put the names to familiar tunes, and to play them over slowly until you are sure of them. Printed music and computer software are available for 180 of the Lewes area's favourite tunes.

Our Have-a-Go session in Chester also gives people a chance to learn dance tunes, many of which are played in sessions (in fact we've just rejected one dance that a caller wanted because it had a tune that no-one was likely to meet again except in a Country Dance Club). Marilyn leads the tunes slowly a few times to give people the feel of them, then after the walk-through we play them at dance speed. Meeting This Thurs.

I am very grateful to all the musicians who encouraged us to learn the tunes. Ollie who started a "let's all get the David Oliver book and play before the folk club" session in Beverley. George Garside and his slow sessions at Whitby festival (and May Cheadle with her even slower session when I started on a new instrument), the Lewes crowd at Chippenham, and the Lancashire band workshop .

Good luck, it sounds excellent. If you want some tunes to get started, the Lewes Favourites can be downloaded free in Noteworthy Composer, abc and midi from the Lewes Saturday Folk Club website here. We've concentrated on tunes that you actually meet in the wild in local sessions as these are the ones everyone's itching to play. The most popular tunes in your area will vary a bit, but there are bound to ones which inhabit both regions.

Sarah, tell the musicians at your slow session that if they go to a festival where Valmai and the rest of Spare Parts are doing a 'learn the tunes' workshop, then it's worth going to. We met them at Chippenham when we were starting to play. They put the music online in advance so you can practise, too. At Whitby May Cheadle runs a very slow 'Not Quite Ready for a Session' and in George Garside's session he starts with well known tunes then people suggest tunes and he allows them if he thinks enough people know them - no racing allowed.

Thanks Mo, I think the Whitby sessions are where I got the idea from. It's funny - we've been running a session for years where 'beginners are welcome' but few new poeple came along, by making sessions specifically for beginners and making it a bit more structured really does seem to work.